By Diane Euston
The sweltering heat always takes it out of us. Its grasp on us launches a serious concern for the well-being of ourselves and others in non-air-conditioned spaces. It’s this time of year that has me annually (and hypothetically) asking why “my people” – my own ancestors – opted to stay here.
Keep going west, family! The coast is great! It’s cooler out there.
But air conditioning, in general, is a newer invention. Although global warming has certainly affected our air temperature more recently, scorching summers aren’t a new thing. Folks, it’s been hot in the summer in the Kansas City region for a very, very long time.
So how did these pioneers before us cope with the heat? There were several survival skills, including sleeping outdoors, swimming and (for those who could afford it) summer homes in the country that offered some sense of relief to the heat.
Keeping Cool in the 19th Century
Photographs and drawings from the Civil War and Victorian era show little wardrobe relief in the hot summer sun. During this time period, wool was the chosen fabric due to its durability – an especially important aspect when most people had one “best” outfit and a few other options for everyday wear.
In the early to mid-19th century, most people traded the wool for linen options, but they still wore multiple layers of clothing. Women who worked in the kitchen usually continued to wear wool due to the fact it was more fire-resistant than other options at the time.
Some simple options, if one could afford it, was to have a covered porch in the front of a home. Early log cabins lacked covered porches; they lacked flooring and usually only had one window that faced to the south for natural light.
In fact, at the turn of the 19th century, the United States enacted a “Glass Tax” that taxed the number of windows a home had. Prior to the income tax, this was an easy way for assessors to count the number of windows from the street, as larger, more opulent homes had more windows.
By the mid 19th century, as Kansas City and the surrounding area grew, there were more log cabins than modern buildings. These log cabins were designed in very simplified terms, many with a detached kitchen. Most used natural airflow to their advantage by adding shutters to their windows. Dogtrot log cabins such as Shawnee chief Graham Rogers’ setup from the 1830s in current-day Overland Park utilized the design of two cabins connected by a central outdoor staircase and breezeway that often added large front porches. This allowed for extra airflow.
In the cityscape, early 1850s Kansas City did as much as they could to beat the heat by adding awnings on the front of shops. This design is easily seen in preserved small towns such as Arrow Rock and Weston, Mo.
Surrounding early two-story homes, shade trees and plants were often planted to offer some relief in the summer through their shade. They understood air flow very well; windows upstairs were opened during the day to release the hot air that rose.
More opulent homes such as the 1855 Harris-Kearney House in Westport were built with tall ceilings to control air temperature and smoke ventilation. Ceiling height in the summertime was essential for relief from stuffy rooms and spaces.
And when all else failed, basements and cellars were the ultimate relief to rising temperatures.
There was also relief offered in cold items that could be purchased. Underground ice houses allowed for the purchase of handmade ice cream (which is documented in records thousands of years old and became popular in America in the mid-1700s) at stores across the city, and America’s favorite ice cream cone entered the scene after being a huge hit at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
In July 1878, the Kansas City Journal reported that Kansas Citians, especially those who lived in apartments in the city, did anything to escape the sun’s unforgivable rays. “Amusing incidents” witnessed in the dead of night offer some explanation on how they slept in rising temperatures.
Some people rested up under the awnings of storefronts. In more residential areas, doors and windows were thrown open with little concern for a passing prowler. The newspaper noted that these homes had “every doorway blockaded by a light sleeper, and every window protected by some mechanical contrivance which would give an alarm at the proper moment.”
Men, who were comforted with “having a revolver within easy reach,” felt more comfortable sleeping on quilts in their lawns. A woman on the west side of town woke up to find her baby missing from the porch where they both had been sleeping, but after she began screaming, it became clear from the cries nearby that the little child had simply rolled from the porch into the bushes.
Electricity Offers Some Relief
By the 1890s, Kansas City newspapers recommended that people take the roads out to the country for some relief to the summer heat, claiming “the refreshing breezes of nature never fails to furnish what should be quite good enough.”
I would argue with this loose claim, as it wasn’t uncommon for the temperature gauge to hover at 90 to 100 degrees for stretches of time in the heat of the day.
Large theaters such as the Coates Opera House at 9th and Broadway placed advertisements in the newspaper announcing they were “cooled by electric fans.”
But there are no electric fans without electricity, and this technology wasn’t as fast-moving as one might think. Gas lighting arrived in the city in 1867. Electric arc street lamps with carbon rods in between them began appearing in the 1870s, but the modern incandescent bulb safer for home use wouldn’t emerge until Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan created an incandescent light bulb in 1879 that, with experimentation, would develop into an entire system of lighting.
The Kawsmouth Electric Company, a precursor to Kansas City Power and Light, started in 1881 with six electric lights illuminated by six bulbs at Union Depot in the West Bottoms. The company was led by Edwin Weeks (1855-1938)
The first house that was electrified was 1409 Cherry in 1886 and was none other than Edwin Weeks’ personal home. He also debuted the first electrified Christmas tree in Kansas City at this same address in 1887.
By 1900, only about 10% to 20% of homes in major cities like Kansas City had electricity, so the introduction of the electric fan was more elusive than one may think. The rarity of electricity in homes prohibited most from enjoying a fan. In July 1890, the Kansas City Times claimed there was no reason for anyone in the city to even want for a fan.
I’m sure most of Kansas City, now and then, would highly disagree with this statement.
The cost alone of an electric fan cut this luxury out for most. The cost for a desk fan was between $15 and $30 (between $500 and $900 in today’s money).
For those who couldn’t afford such a luxury, Kansas Citians opted for simple hand-held fans that began to be mass-produced by the 1880s.
Bath Houses and the City Beautiful Movement
To best understand how Kansas City cooled off, one must also acknowledge the population and structure of the city.
In 1880, the population of Kansas City reached just shy of 56,000, and just 20 years later, the population more than tripled. In 1900, 163,752 residents called Kansas City home.
The growth meant more buildings, and more buildings meant congestion and more macadam surfaces to heat up the city. Public health became a concern, and in the 1890s, the City Beautiful Movement led by August Meyer, William Rockhill Nelson and architect George Kessler began to campaign city leaders to build parkways, green spaces and parks that would “improve public health, civic pride and morale.”
One innovative Independence man addressed an ongoing problem: sanitation and relief from the temperatures. In 1887, Williard Winner (1849-1929), namesake of Winner Road and early developer of Independence and Kansas City, created Washington Park (today’s Mount Washington Cemetery) out of 200 acres. A 20-acre lake fed from Gooseneck Creek created a paradise for boating and swimming, and in 1894, he added a bathing beach to the park.
That bathing beach was one way for those with limited access to a modern-day bathroom to get clean. It wasn’t all about reprieve in the summertime.
Kansas City wasn’t too far behind, especially with the early success and praise of the City Beautiful movement. As always, it was easier to find space for new projects outside the congested city, but it was especially city dwellers who needed instant relief from the heat.
In 1901, the Park Board opened the city’s first public bathhouse called The Parade that filled space between The Paseo to Woodland from 15th to 17th Streets.
It offered a space with showers, traditional baths and featured a large swimming pool that had enclosed walls but no roof. The goal was sanitation versus relief from the heat, but that didn’t stop people in the summertime from using this space for that purpose.
But this pool wasn’t open and free to everyone. Due to strict Jim Crow laws at the time, the Parade wasn’t open to African Americans, and there were strict rules when visiting.
In June 1904, The Kansas City Times reported that the weather drew people in droves to the bathhouse with 1,200 people crowding the pool. The rules at the time allowed boys under the age of 13 to swim in the mornings. Tuesday was “Ladies Day,” but attendance was never as high on days reserved for women.
This is likely because women at the time were weary of dressing in revealing swimming garments, even if men weren’t allowed to swim at the same time.
Most people brought their own swimsuits and towels, and soap was free. If you didn’t have your own bathing attire, a suit and a towel could be rented for five cents.
Swimming in the Pools and the Lakes
By 1907, there were five swimming pools in Kansas City, but most of them, including the YMCA and the Kansas City Athletic Club, required membership. The pool at Electric Park, the first amusement park in Kansas City, was also an offering for white patrons for a fee.
Relief could be found at the many parks in the area. Fairmount Park, a 50-acre park built between Sugar Creek and Independence to induce traffic on a steam railroad line, opened in 1892. The park included many draws, and in the summertime, an eight-acre lake equipped with a bathing beach and boathouse was one of its most popular draws.
Swope Park, established in 1896 and comprising over 1,300 acres, decided to capitalize on the popularity of water in the summertime. In 1908, work started to build the Swope Park Lagoon, and when finished two years later, it was a 25.5 acre paradise in the summer. By 1922, it also featured a popular bathing beach. Later, this lake became part of the Kansas City Zoo.
The first pool built strictly for swimming in the summertime at a public park was located at Budd Park in the northeast portion of the city. Built on land bordering St. John Avenue and donated in the will of Azariah Budd (1824-1890), the park featured a round, shallow wading pool made of concrete. The pool opened in 1917.
According to the Historic Kansas City Foundation, “By the 1920s and 1930s, wading pools had been constructed in parks across the city, including Budd Park, Gillham Park, Arbor Villa Park, Loose Park, and ‘The Grove’ now known as Grove Park.”
Sleeping Outdoors and Out in the Country
During a heatwave where temperatures climbed well over 100 degrees for multiple days in August 1910, the Kansas City Times wrote, “How to get enough sleep in the summer is one of the questions that has been puzzling thousands of Kansas Citians.”
Apartments were often the hottest, and when temperatures climbed, entire families, with blankets and water bottles in hand, camped at night in the open parks.
My great-grandmother, Jean Fetter (1900-1984) wrote in her diaries in 1917 and 1918 stories of how she and her friends would pass the time on hot days.
They’d often go “bumming,” which was slang at the time for driving around in a car with friends. They visited the swimming pools and on really steamy days and they’d drive “out to Pleasant Hill” to their county home.
It was quite common for more prominent Kansas Citians who could afford it to purchase properties outside of the city, because in general, it wasn’t as hot as the city.
My Grandma Jean, when stuck in the city at their home at 3223 Central, would sometimes opt to sleep in the park with her sisters.
During the heatwave in 1910, people flocked to city parks to get relief from the heat. The Kansas City Post joked that people were willing to turn over their valuables if someone tried to rob them while they slept outside in a city park. The paper wrote, “Had he been told his house was burning, he would have rolled over in his sleep and said, ‘Let ‘er burn.’”
Parks and boulevards acted as beds and porches and roofs turned into bedrooms. President William Taft had a sleeping porch added to the roof of White House in 1910. Screens were added to these sleeping porches, and the popular Craftsman-style home usually included a porch on the front.
Screened-in porches became extremely popular as people became more aware of diseases, and of course, those screens certainly helped with the ever-pesky mosquito. An invention in 1910 of the “outdoor window bed” gave this luxury to people who lacked a porch or lived in an apartment. “The bed is made so that the head can be thrust out the window,” the Kansas City Times wrote. “It is surrounded with screens to keep off the mosquitos. An awning covers it to keep off the dew.”
It was clear that Kansas Citians would do pretty much anything for relief on the hottest of days.
The Advent of Air Conditioning
What we now call air conditioning was invented in 1902, but it would be decades before Kansas City had several spaces with it.
The first places to get a form of air conditioning were area hospitals. In 1915 when St. Joseph Hospital was constructed on Linwood Boulevard, plans included “electric and refrigeration plants.” This was the name of the modern-day air conditioner.
By the 1920s and 30s, Kansas City movie theaters were constructed or rebuilt to incorporate large air cooling systems, thus making movie theaters a popular activity in the heat of the summer. Large department stores located on Petticoat Lane quickly followed suit.
But home air conditioners were way too expensive for the average person. In May 1931, the Kansas City Star reported, “In homes, air conditioners are still too expensive to be practical. . . They could be installed and operated at approximately $50 a month in order to have cool air in the summertime.”
That figure equates to just over $1,000 today.
It was the 1950s when window air conditioners became widely available and affordable for middle-class families. A Frigidaire “medium capacity” window unit cost about $4,000 in today’s terms.
By the mid-1960s, most homes were built with modern-day central air.
The 1936 Heat Wave
Often called “The Summer of Death,” the heat wave of 1936 brought record-shattering temperatures to the Midwest. Kansas City was at the epicenter for these scorching conditions, with records smashed daily. Seeking relief was hard to come by, but shopping in air conditioned spaces and going to the movies were common practices. Residents would also buy blocks of ice to set in front of fans indoors for some semblance of relief.
By mid-July, highs in the region hovered day after day at around 100 degrees. The high temperature in Kansas City reached 109 on August 12, and three days later, a record-high 113 degrees virtually baked the region.
Crops across farmlands nearby were destroyed, and the WPA recorded 6,000 calls a day from farmers for financial assistance.
The number of deaths across the region marks this year as one of the most deadly. “The consequence was a nationwide death toll of between 4,500 and 5,000 lives lost, making it among the worst natural disasters in U.S. history,” historian Jason Roe explained.
Roe also noted that the most extensive heat wave in Kansas City history since 1936 occurred in 1980, and “roughly 40 percent of residents still did not have air conditioning, and the Kansas City metropolitan area suffered a shocking 176 heat-related deaths.”
Count your Air-Conditioned Blessings
After reading about sleeping on porches, dragging blankets into city parks, swimming wherever water could be found, and enduring wool clothing in triple-digit temperatures, it’s hard not to appreciate the simple luxury of walking into an air-conditioned home.
What was once an expensive novelty reserved for hospitals, theaters and the wealthy has become something many of us hardly think about. . . until it stops working.
The next time you grumble about stepping outside into another sweltering Kansas City afternoon, remember that generations before us endured the same relentless heat with little more than shade trees, hand fans, open windows and ingenuity. They adapted because they had no other choice. So enjoy the cool air, savor that blast from the vent, and count your air-conditioned blessings. Compared to our ancestors, we’ve got it pretty easy.
